


light and shadow (so it goes)

by Pensysto



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Post-999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors, Safe Ending, discussions of parallel timelines with your dead best friend's brother through a desert in nevada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23422930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pensysto/pseuds/Pensysto
Summary: Zero has lost.A car drives through the Nevada desert.
Relationships: Kurashiki Akane & Kurashiki Aoi, Kurashiki Akane/Tenmyouji Junpei
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	light and shadow (so it goes)

It's a pothole of some kind that wakes him. A sudden bump in the road, the van rearing up and crashing back down as it barrels through the desert, and Junpei's eyes flash open. Loud rock music blares from the car stereo, drowning out the rattle of the tires against the sand.

"What - ?" He jerks his head up, crashing it against the back of the seat. It's enough to jar him fully awake. "Akane! Where - ?"

He twists, glancing out the window - when did he get in a _car_ in the first place? - then at the other people. Seven and Lotus are in the back - both look asleep, dead to the world, dead as Clover and Snake and Ace and _oh Christ what if they're dead?_

Junpei lunges towards them, the seatbelt digging into his sweatshirt as he reaches to shake Lotus. "Hey! Hey, wake up! Seven? Lotus?" He can't see any blood, but they're not waking up, what if they - ?

And just when his heart is rising in his throat and he's straining to hear any sign of their breathing, the driver speaks up. "God, shut _up_ , Junpei."

It's Santa. He doesn't look at Junpei, eyes locked on the road in front of him, pale hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. The thin black scarf is gone, leaving him in nothing but the white undershirt. His eyes are tinged red.

"Santa," Junpei gasps. "Oh, god, you're alive. What the hell? What the hell is happening?"

On impulse, he checks his wrist - but the bracelet is gone. He's not number 5 anymore.

"Don't call me that," Santa snaps. "Fuck. Why do you care?"

And Junpei can't do much else but gape at that, because, _seriously?_ They were _kidnapped_ together, and the ship was about to sink and now they're in a car and Junpei has _no_ idea what's happening. "I - I was in the chapel - Akane, she was there, where's Kanny?"

Because she had vanished - she had disappeared - he twists again, but he can't see her between Seven and Lotus.

"She's not here." Santa's fingers tighten on the wheel. "Don't call her that."

"I - what the hell is going _on?"_

Santa reaches forward, cranks the music up. Junpei bats his hand away and turns it down again. If looks could kill, Junpei would be a goner judging from the glower the other boy is giving him. "Santa, _please,_ I just - where did you get this car? How did we get off the ship?"

"It's my car," Santa says. "There was no ship."

_"What?"_

"There was no ship," Santa repeats. "You thought we could afford the goddamn _Gigantic?_ That ship sank nine years ago. Building Q is just a replica." His tone is flat, at odds with the dark flare of his eyes. "We're in Nevada."

_"Nevada?"_

"What are you, a fucking parrot?" Santa scowls at him. "Dunno why she likes _you_ so much. Dumb piece of shit."

"What the _hell?"_ Junpei shouts. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Oh, what the fuck is wrong with _me?"_

"What _happened?_ You and Akane weren't - Ace - he shot Snake, and Snake held him down and then the incinerator went off - "

"Good riddance," Santa spits out.

" - I went back to the chapel, and I found Kanny - "

"I said, don't fucking _call_ her that!" Santa jerks the steering wheel to the right, taking the curve of the road with much more force than necessary. Junpei's head cracks against the window.

"Who the hell let _you_ drive?"

"It's my car."

"Whatever!" Junpei rubs his forehead. "Whatever, Santa. Shut up. I found her in there, and - and she _disappeared_ on me. Where the hell did she go? I talked to Zero, he said - he said that he lost - "

"Yeah." Santa's scowl deepens. He doesn't look away from the road. "Yeah, he did. You won. Congrats."

"What does that _mean?"_

"Use your _fucking_ brain, Junpei."

So Junpei does.

Ace was in the game to be punished; the same went for the ninth man. Neither of them could be Zero. If it had been Snake or Clover, he wouldn't have been able to talk to Zero after they had died. And Akane - couldn't be Zero. He _knows_ her, better than he knows anyone.

And it had to be one of the nine, and it certainly wasn't Junpei - 

So Zero was in this car with him.

And that meant… 

"You're Zero." It's quiet, almost too reverent for an accusation that heavy.

Santa snorts. "No. Just their assistant."

"Then - ?" Junpei swings his head back around. Seven and Lotus… could one of them really be…?

"You're an idiot," Santa mutters. "Fucking dumbass."

"You - you worked for Zero," Junpei repeats. His tongue feels numb in his mouth as the words force their way out. "You set this up. You _kidnapped_ us, you - you made us play this _death game_ \- people _died,_ Santa!"

"Yeah." Santa grins. There's no happiness to it. "That was the point, Junpei."

"Akane," Junpei whispers. Akane's not in the car. "You… you killed her."

And Santa -

He laughs. He throws back his head and laughs, hard enough to nearly miss the next turn and drives them straight into a sand dune. It's harsh, loud and barking, each one practically torn from his mouth.

Something spills from the corners of his eye. He takes a hand off the wheel, scrubs at it with the heel of his palm. "I didn't kill her," he says. "You killed her."

"... What?"

"I said, _you_ killed her." Santa's lips twist. "Where there is light, there is shadow."

The words echo in Junpei's mind. Zero had said that, when he knelt screaming in the chapel.

"You picked the wrong doors," Santa says. "We tried to tell you. But you just _had_ to see Kubota's corpse, huh."

Door 4, Door 5. Junpei had switched the teams. Wanted to examine the body of the ninth man.

"Kubota?" he says, his voice weak.

"Number nine," Santa confirms. He reaches up, brushes white hair out of his eyes. His fingers are trembling. "Akane said it would happen, but I didn't think he'd do it that quickly. It helped raise the stakes. Even if it fucked you over."

"What the hell," Junpei breathes, "are you talking about."

Santa shuts his eyes. The car slows, rumbling against the sand as he takes his foot off the gas. "I told you about my sister."

"The button," Junpei says. "I mean, uh - " Because Santa hadn't said her name in the engine room, but he had called her cute as a button and Akane had made that stupid joke about her height and - fuck, wasn't his sister dead? He'd definitely said his sister was dead.

"My sister," Santa says. He doesn't seem to be listening. "Akane Kurashiki."

"Santa, what the hell - "

"I said," Santa snaps, "don't _call_ me that." His fingers clench around the wheel, even as the car lumbers to a quiet stop. "My name is Aoi."

"Aoi," Junpei repeats.

"Aoi Kurashiki."

"You're - Kanny's brother?"

Aoi nods. Reaches down, fishes something from his pocket, hands it to Junpei.

Junpei hurriedly takes it. It's a worn photograph, creased and wrinkled and slightly water damaged. A young girl, brown hair bushy and wild, laughing at the camera. Junpei would know that smile anywhere.

"You said - " Junpei's voice cracks, halfway through. "You said your sister is dead."

"Good job," Aoi says. "You remembered."

"Akane was - Akane was _there._ When you said that, she was - she was still _alive_ \- _what?"_

"Akane died nine years ago," Aoi says. "Burned to death in the incinerator of the Gigantic. I couldn't save her."

Junpei flinches. Ace's screams ring in his ears. "But… but I… she was right there…"

Aoi smiles, a thin twist of the lips with no emotion. "Tell me, Junpei," he says. "Have you ever heard of Schrodinger's cat?"

"Uh, _what?"_

"Just humor me."

"The… the cat's in a box," Junpei says. "And… uh, there's a fifty-fifty chance if it's dead from poison. But you don't know if it's dead until you open the box, so… until you do, it's dead and alive."

"Gold star for you."

"It's just a physics hypothetical, though. It's not - it's not real."

"When you went through Door 5," Aoi says, "you cracked open the box. And the cat got a fever."

In the silence, he steps back on the gas. The car shudders back to life, moving along the sandy road.

"I don't understand," Junpei breathes.

"I told you," Aoi says. "I wrote the note in the safe."

_That innocent lives be saved, I now state the truth._

"Akane and I set this up," he continues. "It was identical to the first game. A perfect replica."

"Akane - ?"

"Akane was Zero." The words are blunt, emotionless, like Aoi hadn't just thrown another bombshell into Junpei's lap. "I helped her put it all together."

He ignores it. He has to ignore it, he can't deal with that right now, not when his head is still spinning and his eyes are burning. "You said Akane is dead."

"She is," Aoi says. "She is now."

The photograph creases in Junpei's hand.

"She made it out of the incinerator," Aoi says. "And she died there. You saved her, and you didn't. The point of the game was to open the box."

"Stop," Junpei says. Akane smiles from the photo. "Please, stop, I don't - "

"Look," Aoi says. "You're about to open the box. Before you do, there's two possibilities. What are they?"

"The cat is alive, or it's dead."

"When you open it, you pick one. You go down one of the paths, it's either alive or it's dead. But the other path doesn't disappear." The sun glints in the center mirror, blinding Junpei for just a moment. "You open the box, and the cat is dead. But it used to be both at once. So somewhere, somehow, there's a you who opened the box, and the cat was alive."

"You mean… parallel timelines?"

"Something like it. Every choice has another path. _Where there is light, there is shadow."_ This time, the words drip with a heavy, twisted irony. "You saved my sister."

"What?"

Aoi's eyes stare forward, unseeing. "She solved the puzzle, and got out of the incinerator. And on the boat back to shore, she told me she had seen you. You helped her solve the puzzle."

"... How?"

"Morphogenetic field theory. Lotus told you about it once. Human consciousness is connected. If we reach far enough, if we're in enough danger… we can communicate across time."

"That's impossible," Junpei whispers.

"You saved her life," Aoi says.

"She's - she's _dead._ You said she's dead."

"Akane," Aoi says, "was stuck in a box for nine years. You saved her. But you only did it nine years after she already died. You helped her through the puzzle rooms - even when you didn't know it, you were sending her what you knew. You're a powerful esper, Junpei. The safe code you learned here - you sent it to her, and she sent it back to you - the right you, the one that saved her. All part of the _plan."_ He spits out the last word like it personally wronged him.

"But she's _dead!_ You - you said I _killed_ her!"

"You did," Aoi says. "And I hate your guts for it. But it wasn't your fault."

"I… what?"

"Light and shadow," he mutters. "Life and death. If you open the box, and she's alive - then there has to be a path where you open it, and she's not. That's how it works."

"I don't… I don't understand. I don't understand."

"Stop saying that," Aoi says. "Don't you get it? _Someone_ had to fail. _Someone_ had to lose. You and me - we drew the short fucking straw, got it? We're the timeline where the cat is dead. And there's no going back to save her."

The car rumbles across the desert.

"I killed her," Junpei whispers. "I killed Akane."

"Yeah," Aoi says. "Sucks, doesn't it."

Junpei runs a hand down his face. He can feel his fingers trembling. "I… what did I do _wrong?_ Why couldn't I save her? San - Aoi, I… I _loved_ her, why couldn't I…?"

His vision is blurring. He drops the photograph, and it flutters down to rest on his leg as he covers his face.

And Aoi laughs. It's quieter, not as angry as before. "I've asked myself that for nine years, Junpei."

"Did… did you know?" He rubs at his eyes until he can see Aoi again, the sun glinting off his white hair. "That - that the cat was dead. That we were on the wrong path. Did you know?"

Aoi leans forward, pressing his forehead to the top of the steering wheel. There's a long moment of silence.

"I think I knew," he admits. "But I didn't want to. God, I didn't want to."

"I'm sorry," Junpei says. He picks up the photograph, holds it up to the light. Akane smiles at him, wide-eyed and happier than he ever remembers her being. "I'm sorry I - I couldn't save her."

Aoi is quiet, staring forward. "You couldn't have," he says, voice shaking slightly. "You couldn't have saved her. This was inevitable."

"But if I had done it right - "

"You did," Aoi says. "Another you. Not us." He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. "You never had a chance, Junpei. And neither did I."

Junpei stares out the window. The desert rolls by, quiet and still. "What… what do we do now?"

Aoi shakes his head.

The car rolls forward.

The cat is dead.

And they have lost.

**Author's Note:**

> so! safe end, huh.
> 
> I've been rewatching a 999 LP since I'm stuck in quarantine and it reminded me how sad I am about everything in this game. I love these kids and they hurt me So Bad


End file.
